The governor of deep blue Massachusetts has spent $1 million in taxpayer funds on a partisan media campaign singling out crisis pregnancy centers, that prioritize alternatives to abortion and are often religiously affiliated, and advising women against visiting them.
Breitbart News reports:
The campaign includes ads on social media, billboards, radio and buses warning people to avoid the centers — which the administration dubbed “anti-abortion” — saying they're not to be trusted for comprehensive reproductive health care.
While Governor Healey and her allies accuse crisis pregnancy centers of not offering “comprehensive reproductive care,” the same argument could be made for Planned Parenthood, that claims to offer mammograms and pregnancy care, despite not owning mammogram machines or providing prenatal care, but Governor Healey has indicated no intention of going after the organization.
Breitbart continues:
Center operators are pushing back, teaming with a national conservative law firm to challenge the campaign, saying it infringes on their constitutional rights. The Washington-based American Center for Law and Justice filed a lawsuit earlier this month in federal court on behalf of Your Options Medical, which operates four anti-abortion pregnancy clinics in the eastern part of the state.
The suit alleges the state initiative amounts to an unconstitutional violation of free speech and of equal protection rights for those who run the pregnancy crisis centers. The plaintiffs also argue that the state is subjecting them to religious discrimination.The lawsuit also says the state has partnered with “a pro-abortion group” — the Reproductive Equity Now Foundation — to discredit and dismantle every “crisis pregnancy center” in the state. The state's ad campaign was created by the Department of Public Health and the Reproductive Equity Now Foundation.
The lawsuit states, “This campaign involves selective law enforcement prosecution, public threats, and even a state-sponsored advertising campaign with a singular goal – to deprive YOM, and groups like it, of their First Amendment rights to voice freely their religious and political viewpoints regarding the sanctity of human life in the context of the highly controversial issue of abortion.”
In a statement earlier this week, Healey insisted that the lawsuit was unfounded and that she wouldn't be deterred by it.
“We are going to continue to stand strong for reproductive freedom here in Massachusetts. I'm not surprised to see another frivolous lawsuit to challenge that law. But we're prepared for it and the lawyers will handle that. We are about making sure that women in this state have access to the care that they and their families need.”
When the project was initially announced, Department of Public Health Commissioner Robert Goldstein (also named in the lawsuit) insisted that, “Every day, individuals in the commonwealth walk into anti-abortion centers unaware that these facilities are masquerading as comprehensive medical providers and pose a significant risk to the health and well-being of those seeking help.”
Again, the same could be said of Planned Parenthood, but no state officials have expressed a willingness or desire to spend taxpayer funds exposing the national abortion provider.
